50 Ways to Enhance your Coaching Performance in High Performance Sport.

By Wayne Goldsmith | In Coaching Tips

Recently I got an email from someone saying, “Hi Wayne. You seem to have a lot to say about what people are doing wrong in high performance sport. How about you “put your money where your mouth is” and post a list of things people can do to enhance the performance of their athletes, teams and programs.”

OK. I did.

  1. Train harder;
  2. Train smarter;
  3. Train harder and smarter;
  4. Improve your leadership skills;
  5. Consistently out-prepare everyone in your competition;
  6. Dream bigger;
  7. Believe in yourself;
  8. Back yourself;
  9. Get up faster when you are knocked down or face adversity;
  10. Get tougher mentally;
  11. Never accept the first “no” from a sports administrator or bureaucrat - just fight harder;
  12. Become outstanding at finding and retaining talented athletes;
  13. Develop the most creative thinking skills in your sport: the best ideas win;
  14. Be more passionate about success than anyone else in your sport;
  15. Never become complacent: success is a moving target;
  16. Enthusiasm, passion, desire and attitude are contagious diseases: are yours worth catching?
  17. Use sports science intelligently, effectively and with intent;
  18. Get to know your athletes better than they know themselves;
  19. Collaborate with your athletes - don’t coach at them;
  20. Listen;
  21. Take care of your own health – physical, mental and spiritual;
  22. Be committed to intelligent change and continuous improvement;
  23. Make friends far more often than you make enemies;
  24. Develop a network of coaches in other sports and speak with them regularly;
  25. Leave your ego at the door - ego kills progress and limits creativity;
  26. Read books by great leaders, great thinkers and great philosophers: there are lessons to be learnt everywhere;
  27. Go back and read Number 1 on this list again – you have to work harder than anyone else;
  28. There are no short cuts: anything promising double figure improvement (e.g. 10% or more) in high performance sport is more fictitious than Lord of the Rings and you aren’t a hobbit;
  29. Develop a group of close friends outside of your sport and don’t talk to them about sport;
  30. Sleep and eat well everyday;
  31. Find a sports science network group who respect you, want to collaborate with you and will grow with you;
  32. Adopt an integrated approach to identifying and developing talent: physical, mental, technical, tactical, cultural and genetic;
  33. Teach one new lesson to every athlete every day;
  34. Give and seek feedback often;
  35. Hate losing – but learn from it, grow from it and improve as a consequence;
  36. Take smart risks with your program, your ideas and your coaching;
  37. See an athlete’s parents as partners in performance not as adversaries or just paying clients;
  38. Create the culture you want to coach in: start with your own attitude then “infect” everyone around you;
  39. Accelerate your learning faster than your opposition: from learning comes change, from change comes improvement, from improvement comes winning;
  40. Take up another passion - i.e. other than your sport – to focus your mind and intelligence on;
  41. Get to know the techniques, skills, rules and regulations of your sport better than anyone in the world;
  42. Learn from the legend coaches of your sport - to see further than giants, you must stand upon their shoulders;
  43. Keep records, refer back to them often and learn from them: those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them;
  44. Find a mentor - someone whose skills, knowledge, experience, attitudes and philosophies are complimentary (i.e. different) to your own;
  45. Find someone to mentor: nothing teaches like teaching;
  46. Become a master of the Internet, social networking and all current forms of communication: communicate the way your athletes want to be communicated with;
  47. Don’t think, speak or act in absolutes.…there is no such things as “always, “never”, “must” and “only” in high performance sport: challenge everything!
  48. Learn enough about sports science, sports medicine, technology and strength and conditioning to look your staff in the eye and challenge them with a level of credibility and understanding;
  49. Hire intelligently: hire on attitude and passion, then train the skills you need;
  50. And number 50………an oldie but a goodie….never, ever give up. Persistence and perseverance usually beat talent, money, facilities and potential.

There you go.

What are your top 50? Let me know – let’s see if we can add another 500 to my list!

Wayne Goldsmith

© 2010, Sports Coaching Brain. All rights reserved. This post can not be reproduced in full or in part without the expressed consent of the author Wayne Goldsmith.

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May 18, 2010

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Comments

6 Responses to “50 Ways to Enhance your Coaching Performance in High Performance Sport.”

  1. Jamie on May 18th, 2010 10:20 pm

    Hi Wayne

    I feel that these types of lists distill the essence of coaching and make some core principles and ideas easily accessible. I have compiled my own list over several years. Whenever I hear or read something that really strikes a note with me I add it to the list. It’s now up to about 16 pages and I try to read through it at least once a month to remind me and keep me on track. I have listed some of them below. I must apologize up front that very few are my own and in many cases I’ve forgotten where they originally come from. Some may be from articles of yours published in Olympic Coach or from some swimming websites.! Some of them definitely come from the following people Mike Spracklen, Chris O’Brien, Jurgen Grobler, Dick Tonks (rowing), Vern Gambetta, John Leonard, Brent Rushall. Others from a wide variety of reading including some science fiction stuff!!

    I look forward to your future posts and hope that a few of these are new to you and can be added to your list.

    The environment is important.

    There are no shortcuts. Modern training methods do not take away from the hard work required for success.

    Apply yourself to the task of coaching by study and application. Knowledge is speed.

    We do not “know” anything in training, and as such we should remain open and flexible to new ideas.

    Expand on your knowledge. Seek out the experts. Knowledge transfer is two way – give to get.

    A good coach must also be an excellent “scientist” in order to understand the training process and to use the available research effectively.

    You will hear and read a lot. Seek, understand, and pick up pieces and develop them within your own style.

    Some information may only be applicable to elite athletes and others only to novices. Not all information will be of value to all athletes.

    The secret, the art of coaching, is knowing when to pull which particular piece of knowledge and experience out and use it.

    Only do it if it will make a difference.

    If you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Expand your coaching toolbox, having the right tool is 90% of doing the job the best way possible, with the best result.

    Good leadership is when the athletes have confidence in leadership and get on with the real task with one focus in mind, to be the best they can be.

    When one begins to celebrate mediocrity, then the path to the basement is a rapid one.

    Smart coaches learn from their mistakes, smarter coaches learn from the mistakes of others.

    You don’t have to be brilliant to be a good coach, but you do have to understand other people – how they feel, what makes them tick, the best way to influence them.

    Don’t waste time learning the tricks of the trade, learn the trade.

    If you can’t explain it to a U14 you do not understand it properly.

    Try to keep the training simple. Although it may be based on complex science it should be possible to simplify it down to easily understandable elements for the athletes.

    The key to success does NOT lie not only in training hard but in training purposefully and carefully.

    Quality has a Quantity of its own.

    Place athlete’s long term health before any other goal or objective.

    Everybody wants to coach somebody talented and if you wait for that talented youngster to appear on your doorstep it will never happen. You must develop an environment that will provide an opportunity for that to occur.

    At an elite level it is the coach’s job to refuse to compromise.

    If an athlete doesn’t totally commit to a goal then the pain of failure is reduced. However the chance to succeed is even more greatly reduced.

    The best form of motivation is encouragement – exploiting the athletes desire to be successful.

    No two people are the same — deal with them differently.

    Mutual trust and openness are key — guard them jealously.

    Don’t run away from tough decisions.

    No criticism means no progress.

    Confront the brutal facts and never loose faith

    Use technology as an accelerator not a centerpiece.

    Accept responsibility – Athletes respect coaches who have the integrity to admit their mistakes.

    Introduce new ideas one at a time and measure their effect.

    Good athletes eventually learn to give up force for accuracy, for precision.

    Biomechanics change over time, therefore our approach to training will have to change over time – an acknowledgement of different training techniques for different stages of athletic development.

    “Let them think that they are doing what they want to do, and make them do what you feel the performance requires”

    Give teams/athletes time to produce their best. Do not rely on quick fixes as these will crack up during a race.

    Train very hard in the “off season”. Apart from improving their physiology, the crew will be confident that they have done the work and ‘deserve’ to win races.

    Physical adaptation to work load is only as effective as the load the athletes place on themselves and the coach’s task is to prepare a program to which the athletes commit with confidence. An athlete can reach no level higher than that to which he commits in training.

    The athletes must feel better prepared than they think they need to be.

    Expect fierce competition if the goal is to win.

    The longer you have the athletes training, the better you will know their strengths and weaknesses.

    Athletes have highs and lows, those who do not have lows are not training effectively. If this is not explained clearly athletes could lose confidence in themselves and in the program they are following.

    Athletes who have committed to a good training program will know their own physical limitations but most athletes are unaware of how far they can push themselves. The coach’s task is to show them how much more they have to give when they think they can go no further. The coach’s task is to help the athlete put “backing off” a little further along the path each time until it becomes that last step of the race.

    Acceptable is not good enough, it must be exceptional.

    Finish strong always! In training and in racing. Always train like you want to race.

    Maintain quality day in and day out.

    Take athletes out of their comfort zones and challenge them to overcome obstacles.

    A balance must be struck between the challenge of the task and the skill of the performer.

    Keep a small notebook and record the main points of your conversations with other coaches. You will collect a lot of rubbish but the few really good tips or points will make it worthwhile.

    The “X” factor in successful coaching is, to quote an old saying, “The ability to separate the wheat from the chaff.” Another way of expressing it is to say, “You must be able to recognize the important things and work on them; and to minimize the unimportant, cut through all the detail and get to the heart of the matter. The perfectionist usually does not make a very good coach; he is too busy taking care of the little details and seldom gets to the heart of the matter

    Be extremely well organised. Have a pre-planned training program for the year and don’t be tempted to change it as race time approaches. Too many coaches try and fit in too much during the last two weeks.

    Keep your focus away from the uncontrollables.

    Base the training program on improving measurables. Without hard data you cannot be sure what is making the boat go faster, even if you are going faster.

    Do not use things in the program that you like and leave out things you don’t like. Use sessions that will benefit the athlete.

    Rest is often more important than more work. Athletes are weaker after work and only stronger after recovering.

    The objective is to complete the highest volume of quality training.

    Stress is not cumulative. Stress is multiplicative.

    Try to organize training in such a way that we minimize the negative stress effects while still achieving the physiological adaptations required.

    When boat speed is desirable, train the brain to automate exquisite appropriate movement patterns. Gold medals are given for rowing fast. No medals are awarded for the best-developed aerobic capacity, the densest mitochondria, or the number of capillaries per cross-sectional area of muscle. Few rewards occur when the test results for an anaerobic threshold are read. V02max does not earn a seat in a boat. Good technique in a specifically fit athlete is what is rewarded in these sports. The brain will determine that.

    Train too hard on the easy days, and soon you will be training too easy on the hard days.

    If you do huge volumes you will either get economy gains (to survive) or you will burnout and leave the sport. If you have huge number of athletes you may loose a large number but will be left with really good athletes. If you start with low numbers then you cannot afford to loose any and have to be much more careful with training volume.

    Be careful of using unnecessary recovery techniques. Using complex or time consuming recovery methods when athletes are not experiencing high levels of fatigue are a waste of available training time.

    Do not try to construct athletes in the gym. Be careful of loosing natural athleticism and talent.

    People that complain about doping are missing the essence of sport, once an athlete is doped, he has already lost — regardless of outcome.

    Performance confidence rises or falls based on the quality of your preparation, the quality of your focus, and the extent to which you believe in your capacity.

    Challenging task and overcoming adversity develop confidence. Racing is challenging and athletes need to experience overcoming these challenges in training.

    Championship performance will mean that you survive at the very edge of your psychological, physiological and structural envelopes.

    Stop finding reasons to back off training and give them the tools to go to the dark places that their talent will take them.

    Use scientists but do not allow them to eclipse the coaching.

    Shun all favouritism. Performance is all.

    Remember the bumblebee.

    Check everything one more time.

    …And if they lose, they have done their best. A friendly word and chat will help them regain their confidence. They live to fight another day.
    .

  2. Wayne Goldsmith on May 19th, 2010 5:40 am

    Thanks Jamie – wow, what an amazing list.

    I really like the combination of technical ideas, coaching philosophies, attitudinal stuff and life lessons – outstanding work my friend.

    Thank you for sharing this with me and my blog family.

    WG

  3. james marshall on May 19th, 2010 5:25 pm

    I like the bumble bee bit.

    Good job both of you.

  4. Jimmy on June 25th, 2010 3:28 am

    Hi,

    I am new here, but glad I found more like minded people to share peak performance in sports ideas with. Thats an impressive list, but it won’t be much help for someone needing help to be staring at 50 ways to improve. I think our players need 3 ways at most to focused on at a time. So what do you guys think are the 3 key things to improve? Personally for me number 5, 7 and 33 on Waynes’s list are practical ways that the athletes can do to succeed one step at a time.

  5. Wayne Goldsmith on June 29th, 2010 9:58 am

    Hi Jimmy,

    I think some of the 50 will apply at different times in your coaching career. Just like on some days, the key aspect of preparing an athlete is to focus on skills development, then the next day it might be fitness, then mental skills the following day, I think you take and apply a handful of the 50 tips as you need them during your coaching.

    Thanks for the comment.

    WG

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